Jindal Drilling And Industries Limited (NSE: JINDRILL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 01, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Kaushal Bengani — Investor relations
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Varatharajan S — Analyst
Apoorv Bandi — Analyst
Faisal Hawa — Analyst
Adarsh Hinduja — Analyst
Maitri — Analyst
Jitendra Panjabi — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, Good day and welcome to the General Drilling discuss Q1 FY26 results conference call hosted by Antique Stock Doking Ltd. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing STAR and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vartharajan. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Varatharajan S — Analyst
Thank you Nidhi. A very good afternoon to everyone. It’s my pleasure to welcome all the participants and the management represented by Mr. Raghav Jindal, Managing Director and Mr. Kaushal Bendani, Deputy General Manager, Investor Relations and Finance for this call. I’ll hand over the call to the management for their initial comments and we can move on to the Q and A after that. The floor is yours Sir.
Kaushal Bengani — Investor relations
Thank you Mr. Virasarajan. Good afternoon shareholders and thank you for joining our earnings call. We’ve had a very good quarter. As was expected, revenue and EBITDA improved due to recent acquisition and full quarter operations of Jindal Pioneer. Further, one of our rigs, Jindal Explorer was DE hired in May 2025 and is currently under refurbishment. It will be redeployed in October 2025. However, this DE hiring has not impacted our profitability. I will briefly summarize key financial indicators on comparison of Q1FY25. Sorry. On comparison of Q1FY26 with last quarter Q4FY25, total revenue was similar. However, EBITDA increased by 23% from 87 to 107 crores.
PAT increased by 5% from 53 to 55 crores and EPS increased from 18 to 19 rupees per share. These figures are standalone figures. The consolidated figures are even better. At. The PAT and EPS level. The increase in profitability was on account of income from owned rig Jindal Pioneer. Whilst revenue from operations increased from 245 crores to 254 crores. There was a decline in other income due to forex fluctuation leading to similar revenue as last quarter. The improvement in earnings was communicated in our earlier calls and we have managed to live up to the guidance given. I would now like to take you through our earnings presentation. The first slide talks about general drilling and industries. We are the leading offshore drilling services contractor in India’s oil and gas sector.
We have more than 35 years of experience in the sector of offshore drilling. We are supported by an efficient and experienced operational and management team who ensure that our efficiency is not compromised and we achieve highest levels of safety. We have six rigs in our fleet and are currently operating four with ongc. One rig, Chindal Explorer is under refurbishment for next ONGC contract and one rig is currently engaged overseas. In addition to offshore jackup rigs, we also provide mud logging and directional drilling services. The rigs that we have are detailed on the next slide. In addition, we have also put out the total order book of the company, bifurcated rig wise and on.
We have bifurcated the order book year wise so that the amortization of order book is easily understood by interested individuals. The quarterly highlights and detailed financials are on the next four slides. A key point to note is on slide 11 where you would see that our net cash position has not changed despite the acquisition of Rek Jindal Pioneer which only indicates strong operational profitability. Our shareholding structure is given on the next slide. That concludes our brief and we would now request Mr. Varatharajan to open for questions.
Varatharajan S — Analyst
Thank you. Please take it up. Yeah.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Yes sir. Thank you very much. We’ll now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Apur Bandi from Whitestone Financial Advisors Primevit Ltd. Please go ahead.
Apoorv Bandi
Yeah. Thank you sir for the opportunity and congratulations for the good set of numbers. So my first question is on the. What is the book value of our rigs like? The book value is currently 795 crore in the books. But what is the market value? I want to ask.
Kaushal Bengani
Market value fluctuates depending on the availability of rigs in the market and the crude oil price. The most recent rig purchase and sale was that of General Pioneer which was done for $75 million. That is a rig which was manufactured in 2015.
Apoorv Bandi
Okay, so but this general panel is the one which we have bought recently, right? I want to ask that the old rigs which we have, for example General supreme or Discovery 1. Right. What is the market value for those. Those rigs and the book value? I just want to understand that the value which we depreciate. Right. The current Value of the rigs is less in book value or is more in the book value than the market value.
Kaushal Bengani
Market value is generally higher for old rigs because of depreciation and the fact that these rigs are participating in the same tenders in which new rigs are also participating. But if you’re looking for a figure, we cannot provide that to you right now because we have not undertaken evaluation exercise.
Apoorv Bandi
Okay. Okay. And so my next question is like, I understand that we have done a new activation right in the recently, but when are we planning for the next acquisition or like how we are headed for the new growth in the company?
Kaushal Bengani
So we are, we are actually based on the ONGC tenders. ONGC tenders have been a little sluggish. If there are new tenders coming up, we will be looking at further rigs other than the ones which we have in our fleet. Jindal Pioneer is going to be bid in the ONGC contract whenever they come out with the tender. And other than the rigs we are not really looking at anything more as of now.
Apoorv Bandi
According to you, the country demand is sluggish, right? As you have mentioned. So the charter rate also depends on that.
Kaushal Bengani
We saw a few tenders by ONGC which were either delayed or cancelled. So this is also because there is some work going on in ONGC with BP which is supposed to end this year and they will be coming out with new plans for 2026.
Apoorv Bandi
Thank you sir. All the best. Thank you.
operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their Touchstone telephone. The next question is from the line of Faisal Hawa from HD Hawa and please go ahead, sir.
Faisal Hawa
Three questions. What is the current per day hiring rate of rigs in the international market? Second question is that Mr. Raghavjinder in a previous Concord had mentioned that this 40,000 per day rig that we hired out to ONGC was more like a one off. And we expect much better rates in coming OMGC auctions also. And particularly when we have another coming up for auction in October, I think. So does the statement still hold true or there are some situations which have changed Again, third question is that there is, there are, there are some rigs in one of our sister concerns also.
So is the management thinking in terms of consolidating all this in one balance sheet?
Kaushal Bengani
The international rig grade currently is upwards of 80 between 80 and 90,000. Yes. The statement that the last tender went for a very low price was a one off and we expect the rates to become better Again holds true because it was due to competition that one of our competitors bid a very low rate because they had three rigs idle and they wanted to desperately get one into action. So it was a one off and we hope to achieve the international market prices or slightly lower what ONGC usually gets back. Again, consolidation. Nothing as such in mind but eventually we would prefer to have all the rigs in one balance sheet but no timelines for that.
Faisal Hawa
And sir, continuing from the previous participants question regarding the present value of the rigs, I know for a fact that these rigs would be valued at much higher than book value. But most of the rig owners all over the world are not even making like a simple interest on the current value of the rigs. So what could change from year on? Do you feel that many of these people would grow tired and sell the rigs or maybe the rates will further go up to really justify the capital investment of such.
Kaushal Bengani
See, if you have to buy a new rig today, it is upwards of 250 million and only the new generation rigs are really which have value. And if there is no contract then people are selling it. People are selling it as low as 60, 70 million as well. And if there is a demand for one particular rig and it is being seen, we have been offered rates of more than 130 million also. So like what Kaushal said, we don’t have a. It’s. It’s very difficult to estimate the market value of these rigs. It all depends upon supply and demand at that particular time for a particular aspect.
Faisal Hawa
Okay, I’ll come back in the queue for more questions.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press Star and one on their touchtone telephone. The next question is from the line of Faizal Hawa from HG Hawa. Please go ahead.
Adarsh Hinduja
Can you give some estimates as to what our profitability will look in the coming year given that most of the rigs are hired for longer time and what kind of capex that we will probably also have in this coming year, particularly this FY25.26.
Kaushal Bengani
In FY25 our revenue was 884 crores and EBITDA was 230 crores. In FY26 we estimate that revenue will be in excess of 925 crores and EBITDA will be between 360 to 380 crores going forward. In FY27, even though there are a couple of rigs getting hired in FY27, our revenue will be almost 900 crores in FY27. And EBITDA will again be in the range of 360 to 380 crores for financial year FY27. This is assuming that Jindal Pioneer gets deployed at a very low rate of $40,000 per day. These are very conservative projections. I want to stress this repeatedly that these are conservative projections based on assumption that Jindal Pioneer would be deployed on the next contract at $40,000 per day.
I am not saying that Jindal Pioneer will get deployed at that rate. We expect the rates to be much higher. But so that our projections are not overstated in any shape or form, we have taken a conservative view. So in summary, the profitability that we will achieve in FY26 will be replicated in FY27. And if rates go up in that interim period, then profitability in FY27 will be higher than the profitability in FY26.
Adarsh Hinduja
And is it a good assumption to make that our depreciation will be quite higher now and interest outgo will be almost zero. So basically cash, cash pat will. Will almost mirror the ebitda.
Kaushal Bengani
That is correct. If you see our finance cost has continued to decline and it is only 2 and a half crores in June 2025. This will further decline as and when the gross debt is paid. And depreciation will also increase when more rigs are acquired, not before that.
Adarsh Hinduja
But our operating profit in in the first quarter was around 107 crores. So I mean, do you think that this 380 crores is being a little conservative?
Kaushal Bengani
Sir, these are reasonable estimates because Jindal Pioneer is a profit making center and it is expected to be rehired in September of this year and then it will go into refurbishment. So for the third and fourth quarters of this financial year we do not expect any income from general finance.
Adarsh Hinduja
So. So basically will we also play contrarians and if we get some rigs at very good rates, try to buy them out, know that we we can easily raise debt at very good rates.
Faisal Hawa
Yeah. So like I told you, if a contract in ONGC is there and we have models that we can provide, we would definitely be looking at acquiring them. And even renting them.
Kaushal Bengani
Whatever is available. Either a bareboat charter is one option or the other option which is more feasible is for us to be is to just buy them out.
Faisal Hawa
Is the management doing anything to improve the liquidity on the stock in terms of. Because our equity also remains quite low. And I mean the dividend payouts so far have been not, not very high. So now that the cycle has turned from for us, are we looking at doing anything on that front?
Kaushal Bengani
I mean, I really can’t comment on that.
Unidentified Speaker
But we will definitely not put in any funds into equity mutual funds or anything of that kind of. Or if we have extra liquidity.
Faisal Hawa
Mr. Hawa, can you please repeat your question? We missed.
Kaushal Bengani
Are we on record to say that we will not put the liquid funds into any kind of equity mutual funds or this thing going forward?
Unidentified Speaker
We will not invest operational surpluses in equity mutual funds. We want to retain the operational surplus surplus because we have to incur refurbishment expenditure as and when rigs will get dehired.
Faisal Hawa
Okay, thanks a lot.
Kaushal Bengani
Amortized over the duration of the contract.
Faisal Hawa
Okay, and can you give some light as to what the ONDC projects projections are for capex or something or. These are things which are not really very reliable to even take any kind of strategy on.
Kaushal Bengani
We know that they have another tender coming out by September and other than that we don’t know much.
Faisal Hawa
So is there any connection between new oil being discovered in various regions and kind of the rigs being deployed or. There is no such connection, like I.
Kaushal Bengani
Told you will go up because we are working with BP right now for the last two years. Last one and a half years, another six months to go. They will come out with a more aggressive and a better plan on how to drill so we can expect them to get become more active.
Faisal Hawa
And do we have any connects with Aramco also or these are again open tenders and anyone can participate?
Kaushal Bengani
Yeah, it’s open tenders and we can participate but we are not really wanting to look at Aramco as of now.
Faisal Hawa
Thank you sir. I appreciate you answering my question so well.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Adarsh Hinduja from an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Adarsh Hinduja
Hi. A lot of my questions were answered in the previous question but I wanted some more clarity on Jindal Pioneer. Assuming ONGC tender does not go through for some reason, do we have a backup plan for that rig?
Kaushal Bengani
We are already speaking to some international companies as well as in India. So yes, we do have a backup plan.
Adarsh Hinduja
Okay, great. And out of curiosity, any reason why. You wouldn’t want to work with Aramco?
Kaushal Bengani
Aramco is quite uncertain. Like you must have heard that they dehired about 20 rigs in the previous years. So the tender is very volatile. They can cancel or amend the rates at any time and it’s usually not a very long term period contract though the rates are higher. So we prefer stability. That’s why we were with ONGC saying that opportunity and if we have a rig available, we would not shy away from bidding in their contracts.
Adarsh Hinduja
All right, thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Apur Bandi from Whitestone Financial Advisors Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Apoorv Bandi
So I just have one follow up question. Is it fair to assume on the depreciation side that 38 crore per quarter ended would be there for the year or we should expect more depreciation than this.
Kaushal Bengani
38 crores is a fair figure for the rest of this financial year.
Apoorv Bandi
Okay. And. And the similarly interest rate which we have got for this quarter is would be the same limit for the following years. Right.
Kaushal Bengani
It will be lower because interest rates have come down in the June quarter and our debt is also gradually reducing. But we are net cash. Our net cash position will improve.
Apoorv Bandi
Okay, so my second question is on the final side that you have mentioned that in Q3 and Q4 there will be no income for the general panel.
Kaushal Bengani
Right. So. So the revenue increment which we are assuming for this year like 985cr plus. So this completely revenue increase would be from the our old rigs.
Unidentified Speaker
So revenue increase will be because in previous financial year General supreme was operating for less than six months. And in this financial year General supreme will be operating for 12 months. And in the FY27 we are assuming that the almost same figure in revenue around 900cr. So but in the next year Pioneer would be contributing to the revenue.
Apoorv Bandi
So. So we are not added that contribution revenue is. It is my understanding, right? Or where am I missing?
Kaushal Bengani
I’ve already mentioned that we have taken a very conservative rate.
Apoorv Bandi
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Maitri from Sofia Capital. Please go ahead.
Maitri
Yeah, Hello. Am I audible?
Kaushal Bengani
Hello. Yes, ma’.
Maitri
Am. Yeah, so the last time Pioneer was taken on a very low per day contract. And now we are again bidding for an ONGC contract. So what sort of confidence do we have that another competitor won’t bid just as low as the last time it happened?
Kaushal Bengani
I believe they must have learned their lessons. They left 20, $30,000 on the table. That was the difference between L1 and L2. So I just hope that they have the brains not to bit as low as that.
Maitri
Okay. And why not take Pioneer for the international contract? Because we have a better.
Kaushal Bengani
It also does not affect the international market prices. So definitely, definitely they will have learned that.
Maitri
Okay. And why not take Pioneer to the international market rather than taking it to ongc.
Kaushal Bengani
So we are open, like I told the gentleman before, we are looking at some international operators as well as other Indian operators in India as well.
Maitri
And any names you could, you would say?
Kaushal Bengani
No, I would not.
Maitri
And any. Oh that makes sense. And any recently Rick, that has been contracted, any prices, do you have that currently in the market?
Kaushal Bengani
What’s going on in ONGC was our last trade and internationally a few have been around 80 to $90,000.
Maitri
That is it for my side. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jitendra Hiro Punjabi from EM Investco Capital Advisors Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Jitendra Panjabi
Yeah, hi. Thanks guys. I have two broad questions right beyond the next 1218 months where a lot of the discussion has been can you articulate how do you think about the business, how do you intend to allocate capital and what’s the high level thinking on adding new capacity or diversifying differently?
Kaushal Bengani
So we do expect, like I said, ONGC had a little interim period of these two years where the demand was sluggish we expect and that’s what the ministry also wants. India to produce more and more oil. So we see this market quite bullish in the coming times and the rig counts to go up. We would like to invest in more rigs when the opportunity is right and the tenders are there and provided we get a available rig in the international market. So yeah, in terms of increasing the rig fleet. Fleet is going to be one area where we increase our capital and diversification.
There are certain thoughts but nothing to really come forward with the plan right now.
Jitendra Panjabi
Okay, and the second question is. What. Is the net cash position today and how are we keeping the cash? Cash is invested in liquid mutual funds. And what is the amount today as on today?
Kaushal Bengani
Roughly as on 30 June, the net cash position is 112 crores. The way we’ve arrived at that figure is by deducting 121 crores from the total liquidity of 233 crores. The debt is 121 crores and total liquidity available to us is 233 crore.
Jitendra Panjabi
Okay, understood. And if I may sneak in, one more question. So we’ve been seeing some of these, some of these actions on some of the Russian linked companies by the US in recent weeks. Okay. I know we don’t have anything directly connected there if it’s my understanding. But I just love to understand if there’s any second second level impact or damage or any implication of what’s happening in terms of these policy actions on. Us.
Kaushal Bengani
I don’t see any reason for ONGC or any other company to do badly or better. Because India is only looking at improving its oil production in the coming future and it will only benefit us with the operations in India.
Jitendra Panjabi
Okay, lovely. Thank you guys. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch tone telephone. A reminder to the participants. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Kaushal Bengani
Thank you shareholders for participating in the earnings call. We are growing as a company and as and when there is an update, we will ensure same is provided to you. Thank you to Mr. Jindal for taking time out from your schedule and thank you to Mr. Bharatharajan for organizing the call. Thank you.
Jitendra Panjabi
Thank you very much on behalf of Antique Stock Broking Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.